Cafe Luc

Hooray for sales! I know I’ve taken advantage of all the offers on during London’s annual sales (though they seem to take place all the time now) but I never knew that restaurants offer sales too. Sure there are toptable offers around but Cafe Luc in Marylebone took matters in their own hands and offered a limited number of £1 meals during the month of August. For each booking made for this offer, one person could have a three course meal from their set menu (available M-F lunch or everyday in the evening) for only £1. I managed to get one of these bookings and made my way to Cafe Luc with Blai a couple weekends ago for a date night.

Cafe Luc claims to offer classic French brasserie food and the restaurant is set up as one too – I loved the way each table had a good spotlight on it, allowing us to actually see the food we ate. We both decided to order from the set menu (one at £1 and the other at the regular price of £15.50), which offered three options for each of the starter, main course and dessert.

We split the two starters between us. The Tomato gazpacho with basil oil was quite pleasant – a cold, smooth tomato soup with a good garlic hit. Nothing there to surprise you though but it’s a good choice if you want a light and refreshing starter.

The Terrine of duck confit with foie gras, toasted sourdough was quite a large and pleasant slice of a cold terrine with plenty of tender duck studded with rich lumps of foie. Two slices of toast were also provided – quite generous too – we’re always complaining that there’s never enough bread served with terrines or pates but this was just the perfect amount.

We both opted for the Steak & frites, pepper sauce for our main course. These were, I believe, rump steaks, if the flavour is anything to go by and weren’t bad – actually, I had quite low expectations and this did turn out to be better than I expected. The bowlful of excellent frites were salty and crisp and we didn’t expect the generous mound of peppery watercress which went down a treat soaked in the meat juices.

At dessert time, we again split two between us. The Nutella crème brûlée was humongous – it was served in a soup bowl! Strangely, I was expecting Nutella to be swirled through the set custard but here it was blended into the crème brûlée itself – and it worked! It was quite delicious if a little gigantic.

The Lemon tarte with raspberries and Chantilly was more run of the mill but still tasty – think lemon curd in a buttery tart shell. But really, that crème brûlée was the star.

Of course my opinions might be tainted by the fact that I got this meal for quite the bargain but we were both of the opinion that we would gladly pay full price for this meal. Of course, I have no idea how one would fare ordering a la carte – I can’t judge on the value you’d get for your hard earned pennies (and if you have ordered a la carte, do let us know how it was!). Service was a little chaotic, though never in a malicious way; it seemed that most of it stemmed from bad communication between servers. We didn’t experience any of this firsthand but we watched as our neighbours on one side receive incorrect dishes while our neighbours to the other side had to repeat their dessert orders three times as waiter upon waiter came along. If you’re in the area, it’s not a bad place to stop by for a pleasant meal from the set menu; however, don’t go expecting anything novel. That said, we did enjoy our date night!

Cafe Luc
50 Marylebone Street
London W1U 5HN